Oh dear, look this is gonna get messy. Please once you get it sorted, let us know how you went about it. So the term you're after is sole parental responsibility... In short, you want to be given the right to make decisions about the child without consulting the bio-parents.
The law presumes shared parental responsibility, so even with consent orders granting you and your hubby sole care of the child, shared parental responsibility would still exist. My understanding is a parent can't agree to have that right relinquished, it must be taken away and only a magistrate can do that. Generally, it only happens when one parent is very abusive. Oh and even if you have sole parental responsibility, the bio parents would still be expected to pay child support (there are ways around that, but this is messy.) So the problem is your situation ain't exactly normal so the law hasn't really accommodated it. Really what you want is to adopt the child....
Your initial post was about recommending a lawyer. Just make sure you see a 'family law' expert. They tend to charge crazy money. So you'll be up for few hundred for your first one-hour meeting. But I strongly recommend you spend the money. I'm not a solicitor and like most other people on this site, I'm just a person who has learnt lots about family law as a result of divorce etc, etc. But your case is well and truly outside the norm so any help would be pure speculation even more so than normal.
In regards to the letter from the lawyer, yep, not required for maternity leave. What is required is a birth certificate, but again, that is gonna be a problem because it won't have your name on it...
Regardless, best of luck and please let us know how you go.
Just out of interest - do you intend to tell the child when he/she is older?
